Rogue's Adventures Season One Recap

Welcome to
my first ever recap as we celebrate the end of the inaugural season of Rogue's Adventures. The entire process has evolved organically since I
first started these backlog playthroughs, and I've ultimately decided to
section off and separate groups of games by genre, theme, or however I damn
well please.

It was
always my plan to begin with my staggering backlog of Adventure games - mostly
acquired from sales on Steam and Good Old Games. Season One ended up being comprised
of eleven total games ranging from classics from the early 90s to indie
adventures released in just the last few years. Partially motivated by recent
Kickstarter successes, I also played through the few Double Fine games that I
had yet to play in anticipation of their upcoming crowdfunded adventure game Broken Age. I was hoping to time the
end of my adventure game playthroughs with the release of Broken Age, but alas
as is often the case, the game has been pushed back, and as of this writing no
release date has been announced. Nonetheless my backlog still needs tending to,
and Rogue's Adventures soldiers onward! Before we continue on with the next
group of games, however, I thought it would be interesting to look back at the
games I played.

Season One Schedule

Game

Estimated Hours to Complete

Total Hours/Completion Date

Goal

Psychonauts

15hrs

17hrs/Nov. 21, 2012

Nov-12

Stacking (w/ DLC The
Lost Hobo King)

6hrs (DLC +1hr)

8hrs (9hrs w/DLC)/Dec. 3, 2012

Dec-12

Broken Sword: Shadow of
the Templars

10hrs

11hrs/Dec. 16, 2012

Dec-12

Broken Sword II: The
Smoking Mirror

10hrs

7.5hrs/Dec. 24, 2012

Dec-12

Broken Sword III: The
Sleeping Dragon

10hrs

11hrs/Jan. 20, 2013

Jan-13

Resonance

8hrs

10hrs/Feb 1, 2013

Jan-13

Indiana Jones & The
Fate of Atlantis

9hrs

10hrs/Feb 13, 2013

Feb-13

The Whispered World

11hrs

15hrs/Mar 10, 2013

Feb-13

Beneath a Steel Sky

7hrs

6.25hrs/Mar. 20, 2013

Mar-13

The Longest Journey

18hrs

22.5hrs/Apr. 17, 2013

Apr-13

Dreamfall: The Longest
Journey

13hrs

11.5hrs/May 4, 2013

Apr-13

Thanks to
keeping up with my start and stop times by utilizing the Backloggery website, I could calculate approximately how many hours per week I
devoted to playing these games. My goal when I first started this venture was
to devote 5-10 hours per week, with an average goal of seven hours a week.

Psychonauts 17
hours over 18 days = 6.6hrs/wk

Stacking 9hrs
over 5 days= 12.6hrs/wk

BS1 11hrs
over 10 days= 7.7hrs/wk

BS2 7.5hrs
over 5 days = 10.5hrs/wk

BS3 11hrs over
16 days = 4.8hrs/wk

Resonance 10hrs
over 9 days = 7.7hrs/wk

Indiana
Jones 10hrs over 8 days = 8.75hrs/wk

TWW 15hrs
over 20 days = 5.25hrs/wk

BaSS 6.25hrs
over 5 days = 8.75hrs/wk

TLJ 22.5 hrs over 23 days= 6.84hrs/wk

Dreamfall
11.5hrs over 11 days = 7.3hrs/wk

TOTAL Hours/Week = 7.89

Perfect,
even a bit better than the average arbitrary goal I had set. Along with the
incredibly useful hourly information presented in HowLongToBeat.com, I can approximate how long of a time investment any given title will
be. It's difficult to judge days spent as outside factors (life) obviously can
have a major impact on my gaming time. I can easily recognize the games that I
devoted some extra evening sessions too as they have more hours than days.
Other than whatever slowed me down on The Whispered World, I kept a fairly
steady pace throughout the second half of the season.

Some Nifty Stats

Total Tweets
by @RoguesAdventure - 1880, an average of 171 per game and 14.5 per hour
of gaming!

Alright, the
moment you've all been waiting for since you first read the header and realized
what I was about to do - rank the games I played! With the exceptions of
Indiana Jones and The Longest Journey, all of these adventure games I had never
played before; with those two I had only gotten halfway through and a fourth of
the way through respectively. Since I already discussed each game in its own
Final Thoughts, I'll link to each one for a refresher.

The top
three (and maybe Stacking) would definitely be candidates on my Top Ten
Adventure game list, if I ever did one. The first two Broken Sword games were
great, but the modern day theming just didn't excite me. I did ultimately find
Psychonauts and The Longest Journey a bit overrated, though I did enjoy many
aspects of both of them. Beneath a Steel Sky seemed pretty cool but has aged
terribly and was astonishingly short. The only games that were really a slog to
get through were the bottom two and for two very different reasons.

All in all
I'd say Season One was a lot of fun and it was an awesome opportunity to delve
into a genre I hadn't played much of in the last few years, as well as a few
titles that were highly regarded and tend to make every gamer's bucket list.
I'm definitely pleased with the way it has motivated me to keep playing and
diving into these games, even while new ones come out, and on the reception
that it's received. So thank you guys for being supportive and I hope you
continue to look forward to my adventures next season and beyond.